Evaluation of surgical management of primary spinal tumours

Spinal tumours, which are 5-10% of skeletal tumours, cause considerable morbidity and present challenging situations in their management. Surgery is often used in the treatment of spinal tumours. Now a day only few specialized spinal care centers have developed in Bangladesh. The prospective study regarding surgical management of primary spinal tumour might be beneficial for proper planning and patient management. All patients who underwent surgical resection of a primary tumor of the spine between July 2006 and May 2008, at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka, Bangladesh. Patients were uniformly staged before surgery and baseline demographic and surgical variables were recorded, as well as an evaluation of general health related quality of life were done. Thirty-two patients (16 males and 16 females) were eligible for the study. Average age was 43.25 (range 15 to 85). There were 8(25%) vertebral body and pedicle tumors and 3(9.37%) extradural, 16(50%) intradural-extramedullary and 05(15.67%) intradural intramedullary. Only 5(15.63%) developed complication. In this series out of 32 patients, 15(46.88%) achieved excellent result and 10(31.25%) got good result and 5(15.5%) achieved fair and remaining 2(6.25%) patients achieved poor results after the management. Complete neurological involvement of patient did not show complete recovery. In addition to surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are needed to sterilize the tumour bed. Early detection and surgery of primary spinal tumour give satisfactory results and patient can return to their normal life.